December, 2011
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Beyond the Chinese Monroe doctrine
But bilateralism alone will not suffice. China should remember that ASEAN — or the closely-related East Asia Summit — has the responsibility of reducing tensions and addressing threats to regional stability as a whole, and nothing challenges regional stability more at this point than the SCS dispute.
Beyond the Chinese Monroe doctrine
Author: Amitav Acharya, American University
The escalating regional tensions over territorial disputes in the South China Sea (SCS) have revived two crucial questions facing Asia’s strategic future: whether China is pursuing a ‘Monroe Doctrine’ over its neighbourhood, including the SCS area; and how far China’s neighbours can go in acquiescing to its rising power.
The Monroe Doctrine was first enunciated in 1823 by then-US President James Monroe as the policy of a rising US forbidding European powers to either colonise or interfere in the affairs of states in the Western Hemisphere. The essence of the Monroe Doctrine was to deny the Latin American and Caribbean region to European powers, and establish US regional hegemony.
Some see parallels between that policy and China’s rise today. The SCS is China’s backyard and, like 19th century-America, China is a rising power.
In his 2001 book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, John Mearsheimer argued: ‘A wealthy China would not be a status quo power but an aggressive state determined to achieve regional hegemony’. Chinese military modernisation appears to be headed exactly in such a direction, developing what military analysts term ‘anti-access, area denial’ capability. In March 2010, the Commander of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Robert Willard, warned: ‘China’s rapid and comprehensive transformation of its armed forces … challenge our freedom of action in the region,’ and ‘potentially infringe on their [US allies’] freedom of action’.
Danger of new autocrats underestimated
The new autocrats’ priority is political control: A person prepared to acknowledge the ruling group’s supremacy and follow its directives is allowed a certain amount of autonomy to operate. “Loyalists are rewarded, enemies are punished, the neutral are neglected or casually abused,” says the report…
On Cambodia, Kurlantzick writes, “members of China’s Communist Party have advised Prime Minister Hun Sen’s party on how to use laws for libel and defamation to scare the independent media, create a network of senior officials who can control major companies, and instill loyalty in special police and bodyguard forces.”
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS
Dec. 14, 2011
Danger of new autocrats underestimated
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Two years ago, I presented in this space a June 2009 posting in Foreign Policy Online titled “Authoritarianism’s New Wave,” about a “new class of autocrats” and their “most serious challenge” to the rules of law, human rights, and open expression. The piece was jointly written by Jennifer Windsor, Jeffrey Gedmin and Libby Liu, of Freedom House, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Free Asia, respectively.
The three organizations also published a report, “Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians,” on the strategies and methods of five countries — China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Venezuela — “to impede human rights and democratic development” within and beyond their borders.
The report asserted “advocates for freedom” — democrats in those countries — receive little attention and few resources from the democratic world because the systems that persecute them “are poorly understood” and that Western “policymakers do not appear to appreciate the dangers these 21st century models pose to democracy and rule of law around the world.”
Voice from Cambodia: News from the Project by Marilyn K.
A mushroom house has also been started. The aim is to be able to sell mushrooms to some of the hotels in town.The dark, musty hut is filled with containers that are kept moist. So far production is in its infancy, though some of the mushrooms have been used in our lunches.(Photos 779, 781 )
Hi All,
The floods seem to have receded and ,from all reports, I am glad I was not here for them. 
The thought of wading knee deep in water of dubious quality makes me feel quite squeamish. We have had a few heavy downpours since. The potholes in the road quickly fill with red, muddy water and the surface above water becomes slick and slippery. It seems that the earth cannot absorb any more water, but I also know that the composition of the soil is heavily clay and water is not easily absorbed in clay. Quite a few of the volunteers have arrived at the project with red mud all over them after coming off their bicycles. Meanwhile I continue to 
go by tuk-tuk and arrive unmuddied, but having had my free tuk-tuk massage as we negotiate the potholes and other hazards(chickens, ducks, dogs and vehicles) on the road.(Photo 652)
Road repairs are generally undertaken by women who squat at the roadside using mallets to break up the larger rocks and then place them by hand to create an uneven surface, which hopefully will be graded and tarmacked at some point.(Photo 701)
The project continues with its weaving products….some with traditional rattan and some with water hyacinth. (Photo 711)
A mushroom house has also been started. The aim is to be able to sell mushrooms to some of the hotels in town.The dark, musty hut is filled with containers that are kept moist. So far production is in its infancy, though some of the mushrooms have been used in our lunches.(Photos 779, 781 )
The children often bring in exotic bugs that they have found in the hopes of hearing me scream….they should know better by now, but they live in hope and I get to see some fascinating bugs….cert
ainly a lot bigger than most in Canada.(Photo 748)
Tooth decay is a huge problem with the kids and they are encouraged to brush each day. It is sad to see their beautiful smiles marred by black cavities.(Photo 42)
I have been teaching with the older students since I arrived. Loung (my Khmer teaching partner) was moved up to this class and it is 
always a pleasure to work with him. And some of my students from the Tigers and Rhinos class have now become “the big kids” and moved in to this class. It’s great to see how they have progressed over the three year period.
I have been teaching a unit on Simple Machines….supported by the book that Kelly 
Kieran’s class wrote. It has been a challenge to devise hands-on experiences for the students, but at the same time, I’m amazed at how you can rig up inclined planes, etc. with very little in the way of sophisticated materials. We’ve been using a chunk of wood for the load and dangling a plastic bag to which we add chunks of gravel as the force/effort. Not exacting science , but the results have been good enough to demonstrate the principles and even elegant enough to graph the results.(Photos 22,23 ). The kids love making the predictions about how many 
pieces of gravel it will take to move the load. I have a sneaking suspicion that they would place side bets on the predictions given half a chance.
I spent the morning at the market finding nuts and bolts to attach gears and finding plastic baskets with the right sized mesh to attach them to……the Khmer remained unfazed as a crazy barang attached plastic gears to different containers and they worked well enough to be able to demonstrate gear ratio to the kids(Photos 752,754)